As expected, Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney’s play doesn’t happen naturally. Like many great safeties, when McKinney isn’t reading the quarterback’s eyes or coming down to make a tackle, he’s in a constant state of preparation.
Unfortunately, we on the outside are not privy to how McKinney conducts himself off the field. Fortunately, on Thursday, defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley shed some light on what Green Bay’s new safety is like behind closed doors.
“Really competitive,” Hafley said. “Last night I get a text from him probably around 6:30 p.m., ‘Hey, are you finished with the third upgrade plan yet, and can you send it to me?’ » You send it to him and this morning he arrives before everyone else, and he wants to sit down and meet, and he wants me to go with him.
But as a leader and perfectionist, McKinney doesn’t stop there.
“Then he looks at it with our defense and the defensive backs and does it on the visit and does it on the field because he wants to get it right away, and he gets angry when he doesn’t . Because that’s what big guys do, and he holds himself to a very high standard and he doesn’t want to make mistakes, and it shows.
In January, when Hafley was hired to overhaul Green Bay’s defense, he described his ideal safety: a player who looked a lot like McKinney, whom the Packers signed just two months later.
“I want a guy who can erase things,” Hafley said. “We have to eliminate explosive plays when we play this defense, so if a run hits up the middle, that guy has to come out of the middle court with his hair on fire. He has to be able to bring a guy down. I also want that he’s a guy when a ball carrier gets wrapped up, he goes and he finishes the pile… I want a guy that can go from sideline to sideline and take the ball away I think that position needs to be. a guy with high ball production, which means that he has to be able to intercept the ball, he has to be a guy that can communicate, and he has to be a guy that can line up guys and make calls out there, and I would love a guy that can play l. ‘man. So I guess I’m describing the perfect player to you, but these are some of the characteristics I would look for in playing this position.
While no player is perfect, McKinney has come close through the first nine games of the season. He completely revitalized a safety room that was arguably the worst in the league a year ago. McKinney began the season with an interception in five straight games, becoming the first NFL player since the 1970 merger to have an interception in his first five games with a team.
When the Packers made McKinney the fourth-highest paid safety in the NFL in terms of annual salary, they hoped to get a consistent player who could potentially make the Pro Bowl. So far, it’s safe to say they get what they pay for and then some.
Not only is McKinney on track for his first Pro Bowl nomination in 2024, but he’s also likely to be an All-Pro. The last Green Bay safety to be named to an All-Pro team was Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in 2016.
The numbers certainly speak in favor of McKinney. Although he only has one interception in his last four games, he is still tied for the league lead with six.
However, stats and accolades don’t mean much in Green Bay if they don’t include the Super Bowl. That mindset has rubbed off on McKinney, who has already surpassed the NFL Defensive Player of the Month award for October.
“Obviously, that’s not the end goal,” McKinney said.
With the second half of the season still to come, while McKinney may not be a perfect safety, he fits in perfectly with the Packers.
